The four-year prison sentence handed to an Air Force instructor for the rape of a former trainee was described as light though not out of bounds by four people familiar with the growing sexual assault scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
On Saturday, the judge, Lt. Col. Matthew Van Dalen, could have given Staff Sgt. Eddy Soto as long as life in prison without parole for rape, the most serious of the six charges and eight specifications filed against him.
The four-year term “is probably at the low end, but it is a reasonable sentence,” said Frank Spinner, an attorney known for representing high-profile defendants, including an Air Force pilot whose rape conviction was recently overturned by an Air Force commander in Germany, sparking an outcry in Washington.
“I think it is a little low, but I don't think it's outrageous,” said Geoffrey Corn, a retired Army attorney now at South Texas College of Law in Houston. “Obviously, it probably isn't going to do any favors for the Air Force under the current climate.”
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